Frostbitten
by alienyouthct
Summary: "I thought you might be... like me, shall we say. You're not, but you're no less fascinating for what you've turned out to be."
1. Chapter 1

Title: _Frostbitten  
_ Author: JoeHundredaire  
Rating: R/FR18  
Disclaimer: Guerrilla Games owns the world that they've created in _Horizon Zero Dawn_ up to and including its characters, its rendition of Earth, and all related concepts. With a myriad of writers, artists, and editors, actual rights are a nightmare when you go near a comic book universe. Suffice it to say that Marvel Entertainment LLC owns all of the property printed in their comics, along with the television, movie, and gaming adaptations of said same property. Not mine, don't sue, and so forth and so on.  
Summary: "I thought you might be... like me, shall we say. You're not, but you're no less fascinating for what you've turned out to be."  
Joe's Note: This one came to me while I was riding in the car and talking with Lexi about the state of the greater _Horizon Zero Dawn_ universe at the end of _The Frozen Wild_. The story has the ability to be crossed over almost infinitely due to the very nature of the premise: anyone could have been included whole cloth within ELEUTHIA's DNA registry and recreated the way Elisabet Sobeck was as Aloy. So we started brainstorming who it might be fun to see brought back to life and quickly realized that a select few characters would make for some amazing havoc: psi talents. While other mutants - or wizards or metahumans - would come back in similar straits to Aloy and bear only superficial resemblances to their original selves, a psi could have used the astral plane to escape the Faro Swarm, only to return to inhabit a reborn body of theirs. Especially given that she's vivacious, confident, and a born leader... Emma Frost seemed like the natural choice for reincarnation and so this story was born.  
Dedications & Thanks: To Nicholas, Howard, Samuel, Alexander, Tibor, Alonsis2, Daniel, Beverly, Daniel, Jade, Robert, Kimeru, Charles, Crygon20, Subtle, Christopher, Stephen, Fablesrogue, Morgan, Janne, Joseph, Jason, bloodylord, Marc, Ziryo, Leigh, Chris, George, Koby, William, Dale, Dimitria, Haematite, Mauday, Ken, Paul, Pat, Edward, Roman, Warren, and Jess for sponsoring me on , and making it easier for me to spend more of my time writing.

* * *

"...we have been at peace with the Carja. It is time to restore our bonds of trade with Meridian. These envoys come to us under a banner of peace!"

Standing in front of the matriarch's lodge, Aloy did her best to focus on the speaker instead of continuing to gawk at her surroundings the way she had been for the past hour or so. It was more difficult than it sounded; both Mother's Heart itself and her fellow Nora were just so... fascinating. Despite Teb's thoughtful gift of an authentic Nora outfit, she was keenly aware that she wasn't one of these people. She didn't blend in. Probably because she could spend days, weeks, or even months in the village and still not be used to the sights and sounds. And... oh. Someone new was speaking. A Carja? A strange-looking Carja at that. Not that Aloy had met many Carja in her day, but she'd certainly never seen one who looked quite like that.

Unfurling a scroll of some sort, the red-clad man cleared his throat and began to speak. "An annunciation of gratitude, written by the hand of Sun-King Avad." Whatever the 'annunciation' was, the man never got to finish it as the men and women surrounding Aloy came alive, hurling first insults and then fruit at the man.

"Hey, hey! Hold your fruit! Nora faithful, hold your fruit!" The burley, more heavily-armored man surged forward, positioning himself between the cowering speaker and the crowd. "Now I'm Oseram, not Carja-" Well, that confirmed her earlier suspicions. Good to know that she had a decent eye for tribal origin. "-so I'll put it to you straight: the Thirteenth Sun-King was a murderous bung! He was! A tyrant and a monster! Raided my tribe for blood sacrifice, just like yours! My own sister was taken! I hated the Carja!"

A soft, throaty chuckle from her left gave Aloy a start, making her look to her left at the space that had been unoccupied mere seconds before. Somehow she hadn't noticed the arrival of a... very unusual-looking figure. She was draped in flowing blue robes that reminded Aloy of staring into a lake: medium blue from the shoulders all the way down through the waist before slowing transitioning into a much darker shade of blue. Like the Nora, she wore bits of fallen Machines as ornamentation, including a massive headpiece festooned with ribbons. If those two factors hadn't convinced Aloy that this woman was just as much an outsider as she was, the fact that she had blonde hair and bits of glowing blue machine cable sewn into her shoulders would have cinched it. Although that raised the question of why a Banuk was visiting the Sacred Lands. "I'm here because I've traveled quite some distance to observe your Proving. You're not the redhead I was hoping for, but I'm still intrigued. For now, though, this is an amusing distraction. Erend's not exactly helping his friend's cause, now is he? And here I thought James was terrible at delivering speeches..."

"But the Thirteenth King is dead two years now, and who killed him? The Fourteenth!"

Even as the Oseram continued his speech to the restless crowd, Aloy found her attention captured by her new companion. How had the blonde known what Aloy was thinking? Had she really come all the way from Ban-Ur just to witness one outcast's Proving? And- "If you actually bothered to vocalize those questions, darling, we could have a proper conversation. Since you seem to be struck dumb by my beauty at the moment? My name is Emma, I'm what I suppose you primitives would call a seer, and I did indeed come all the way from Ban-Ur just to meet you." Turning to rake glowing blue eyes up and down Aloy, Emma offered a faint smirk. "I thought you might be... like me, shall we say. You're not, but you're no less fascinating for what you've turned out to be."

"Not because he lusted for power, but because someone had to put an end to his father's atrocities!

Aloy raised a brow curiously at that statement even as she blushed faintly at the frankly appraising look being sent her way. While she was an outcast, that didn't mean she was completely naive or ignorant of certain facts of life. Rost had stumbled his way through several aspects of her education, and so while she wasn't as prepared for... certain types of interactions... as she might have liked? She was at least capable of recognizing that she was being flirted with. "Oh? And what might that be?"

"The message that this poor priest means to read is an apology. Straight from the lips of the Fourteenth King. So please, can't you lend him your ears?"

Reaching up, Emma cupped one of Aloy's blushing cheeks in her hand before shaking her head fondly. "You know, I never did consider you that way the first time around. I was married to my redhead, you were married to your work. This time around... we'll see. Because to answer your question, Aloy? We're both anachronisms, you and I. Neither of us should be here. But the fact that you exist means that maybe I finally stand a chance of finding out why I'm here."

"Tha... thank you. An annunciation of gratitude, written by the hand of Sun-King Avad, Fourteenth Luminance of the Radiant Line..."

Before Aloy could ask - or really even think on - what any of that meant, her Focus chimed and flared to life unbidden for the first time in recent memory. Doing her best not to look suspicious - even Rost had been uncomfortable with her ability to see and manipulate something that he couldn't - Aloy surveyed her surroundings in hope of figuring out what was catching its attention. It turned out to be a stocky bald man standing off to the side of the stage, no more a Nora than the men on stage or Emma. Purple circles of light radiated outward from the center of his head within the Focus's construct, along with a warning of an 'Unknown Device Detected'. "Ooh, a mystery. I'll let you see to that." What? Could Emma see- "I don't need to be able to see what your Focus is projecting with my eyes when I can see it with yours. Like I said, go solve your mystery. I'll see you tomorrow." Winking, Emma blew Aloy a kiss with blue-tinged lips before turning and slipping away through the crowd, singing softly as she went. "There must be some kind of way outta here, said the joker to the thief..."

What a strange woman, Aloy thought with a bemused smile as she watched Emma's retreating back. While logically she knew that she should be unnerved at best by the mere idea of a person who could read her thoughts and downright terrified at worst... for some reason, Aloy just didn't find the blonde threatening in the least. Maybe it was because the two of them weren't really that different after all: Emma could hear thoughts while Aloy could see things that nobody else could see. Or maybe it was because the Banuk's use of her powers seemed grounded in mischievousness rather than malicious intent.

...or maybe it was because Emma was very pretty and seemed interested in her, something Aloy couldn't say about any other human that she'd ever met. Aloy's blush returned as she shot one last look over at Emma's back before shaking her head. Thoughts of telepathy and pretty blondes could wait, she reminded herself. For now, she had a mystery to solve: the bald man with the 'unknown device'. But as she began making her way through the crowd toward the stranger, she found herself mumbling words that were both foreign and strangely familiar at the same time. "I see jokers on my left, thieves upon my right, you'd find me in the middle if I picked a different life..."

* * *

Aloy let out a victorious whoop as the Grazer that she'd chosen as her target stumbled and fell, skidding along the ground for several feet and kicking up clouds of snow before finally coming to a stop. While the machines had never directly threatened her or the other teens vying to become Braves, trying to pick off a single Grazer as the herd stampeded and wheeled around them had been nerve-racking. But she'd succeeded in the first step of the Proving; now all that remained was to seize her trophy and move on.

Making her way over to the fallen machine, Aloy quickly drew her knife from its sheath on her belt and got to work prying the Grazer's head apart. While most any portion of the machine would do as long as it was distinctly and obviously taken from a Grazer brought down by her own arrow, nothing quite said 'I killed a Grazer' like the horns, Aloy mused. Hell, looking at some of the others around Mother's Heart, maybe she could turn it into headwear after she won the Proving? Cutting through one last bundle of machine cable, Aloy hoisted her trophy high above her head-

' _Duck!'_

She didn't question why she was hearing Emma's voice in the middle of the Proving Grounds. Nor did she question why she was reasonably certain that she'd heard Emma's voice in her head, rather than with her ears. Aloy simply obeyed, dropping to the ground so that the Grazer's body and legs shielded her from three angles. There was the soft whoosh of something passing overhead, the thud that she associated with an arrow striking its target, and then... a grunt followed by a muttered oath? Lifting her head, Aloy peered around curiously. Bast was standing with his bow in one hand, a look of mute horror on his face. Following his line of sight, Aloy found Resh swaying back and forth unsteadily with an arrow sticking out of his right shoulder. What the-

 _'Resh convinced Bast that he should destroy your trophy to slow you down. Resh is currently regretting that decision.'_

 _'Emma?'_

 _'I'll explain later.'_

 _'You can-'_

 _'Please keep moving. I have a not inconsiderable amount of machine cable riding on the outcome of your Proving, and I'm a very sore loser.'_

* * *

"The Red-Hair dies now! Everyone forward!"

Aloy's eyes narrowed hatefully as the masked man ordered his men onward, leaping down off the ledge he'd been standing on as he pressed the attack himself. She still didn't even know who they were or why she was fighting them; they didn't look like Carja or even Tenakth for that matter. They'd just shown up at the tail end of her Proving and opened fire on them, striking down the venerable female Proctor first before slowly and methodically eliminating the newfound Braves. Vail and Bast had lasted the longest at her side, but even they'd fallen beneath the devastating firepower of... Aloy wasn't quite sure what to call the enormous weapon the one man wielded. Other than perhaps Death.

 _'It's one of the twin ventral machine guns off a FAS-FSP5 Khopesh... although I doubt any of that means anything to you.'_ Aloy's next shot went wide to the right as she twitched, Emma's mental voice startling her badly enough to throw off her normally impeccable aim. _'Apologies. At least you won't have to worry about me thinking in your direction for the rest of the fight.'_ Then a blue-clad figure wielding a staff crackling with lightning came hurtling over ridge, slamming into one of the attackers and driving him to the ground. Pirouetting, she discharged a bolt of lightning into another opponent before smashing the butt of her staff into the head of a third. "Helis! The Red-Hair is mine! Go back and tell your digital master that he can't have her!"

Stepping out from behind a rocky outcropping where he'd apparently been waiting for his lieutenant to finish the job, a large man with a top knot wearing even less than Aloy herself chuckled deeply before cracking his knuckles. "Oh goody, it's the Old One. I'm not sure which will get me the bigger reward: the Red-Hair's scalp or yours."

"You... honestly think yourself capable of taking me, don't you? How amusing." Emma's glowing eyes pulsed brighter and all around her, Aloy's attackers dropped to one knee and bowed their heads in a clear sign of submission. "With what army? This one? Depending on my form, you either can't touch me or can't hurt me. I somehow doubt my scalp is going anywhere anytime soon."

Helis actually laughed at that, the sound sending chills down Aloy's spine. Who laughed in the face of something like that? "You can control them, maybe even me... but what about the men about to crest the ridge with carts full of explosives? Or the ones leading a Corruptor straight toward Mother's Watch? I may not kill you tonight, or the Red-Hair for that matter... but you can't stop all of us."

Stabbing the tip of her spear down into the snow, Emma undid her four-colored twisted belt before shrugging off her robes, revealing more skin than Aloy had ever seen on another human being. Then Emma balled her hands into fists and... shifted... her entire body turning into some sort of glittering crystal. "First rule of villainy, Helis: never challenge a hero to do anything, especially something that seems impossible. They have a way of proving you wrong, often in an incredibly humiliating way. Now... normally I view something as base as fighting to be beneath me, but I do believe that I'm going to enjoy this."

"Archers, focus your fire on the Red-Hair! Leave the Old One to me!"

As Aloy found herself coming back under fire, she ducked behind the rocky outcropping that had kept her safe so far and nocked another arrow. Peering out of cover, her eyes widened as Emma tore her spear free of the ground and leapt down off the ridge, landing in a crouch with a heavy thud. Rising to her feet, she ignored the stray arrow bouncing off of her face as she lifted her spear high and hurled herself forward to meet the charging Helis.


	2. Chapter 2

Joe's Note: Didn't really get a lot of response to the first chapter... probably because I didn't post it very widely. So I have no idea what people think of my story as of this point, but I'm going to push on anyway because it's a passion piece of sorts. This chapter sees us skipping ahead a bit, although hopefully it'll manage to answer any questions you might have about how the battle during the Proving - and the subsequent events - unfolded for this version of Aloy. Enjoy and don't be afraid to review. I don't bite... hard.  
Dedications & Thanks: To Nicholas, Howard, Samuel, Alexander, Tibor, Alonsis2, Daniel, Beverly, Daniel, Jade, Robert, Kimeru, Charles, Crygon20, Subtle, Christopher, Stephen, Fablesrogue, Morgan, Janne, Joseph, Jason, bloodylord, Marc, Ziryo, Leigh, Chris, George, Koby, William, Dale, Dimitria, Haematite, Mauday, Ken, Paul, Pat, Edward, Roman, Warren, and Jess for sponsoring me on , and making it easier for me to spend more of my time writing.

* * *

"Why are the Eclipse digging up ancient machines? And how do they get them to work?"

"I thought they wanted them for scrap. But they brought them back to life! Plugged some kind of device into the corpses so that Hades could whisper to them and call them from their grave."

"I've fought that kind of machine before. Are there others?"

"Yes. The ones you fought today, they call 'Corrupters'. But there are others, much bigger, bristling with ancient weapons. Those they call 'Deathbringers'. I've only seen them buried in the ground, but after today... anything is possible."

"Sounds to me like they're raising an army."

"If so, the world will fall. And I helped dig the pit."

Standing over Olin's supine form, Aloy's head spun as she held the Oseram at spearpoint. When she'd arrived at Rockwreath, her plan had been exquisite in its simplicity: fight her way through anyone standing between her and Olin, confront him, and demand answers about the attack on her Proving that he'd involved with. Instead, things were - if possible - even more complicated than when she'd arrived. She was now armed with far more information than she'd possessed when she'd left Mother's Heart behind, but so very little of it made any sense. Especially the prospect that images of her older self... her mother... whoever the older woman who looked like her was, there were images of her in Maker's End, a location far beyond the Sacred Lands. To top it all off, some new and wholly unknown man had involved himself in her quest by disabling the Eclipse cultists' Focus devices... and she was pretty sure that Emma was lurking around the excavation site somewhere. Which meant that she had both an ethereal stalker and a physical one to figure out how to deal with once she was done handling things with Olin.

 _'I resent that. I'm neither a stalker nor am I lurking. I was trying to give you some space while you dealt with the reason you came here in the first place, but if you insist...'_ Stepping out from behind one of the fallen Corrupters, Emma rolled her eyes and let out an annoyed huff as she made her way over to Aloy with her Stormslinger pinned under one arm. As the redhead watched, Emma's fingers nimbly wound machine cord through an override device identical to the one that now graced Aloy's spear as the Banuk attempted to lash it into place. "I can't for the life of me figure out why this is giving me such difficulty. I'm literally watching your memories of doing it, and yet..." After a few more seconds of fiddling, Emma gave an exasperated sigh and held her Stormslinger out to Aloy, the scavenged cylinder dangling pathetically beneath it. "I don't suppose you'd be willing to help me out?"

The question earned her a disbelieving look from Aloy, the redhead glancing back and forth between Emma and her prisoner several times before gesturing to the latter with the tip of her spear. "Is now really the time to be doing this? I'm trying to interrogate him."

Emma did her best to look innocent as she shrugged, the motion making the poorly secured override device sway back and forth wildly beneath her staff. "In my defense, I was perfectly happy to wait until you were done with him. Then you had to go thinking about me being a 'stalker' who was 'lurking around', I felt the need to defend myself, and... well, here we are."

Yes. Here they were. Arguing over the way she'd phrased her thoughts and Emma's ego as the credibility she'd established as an intimidating warrior during her battle with Eclipse and the twin Corrupters under its control slowly melted away. "Just... stop. I'll deal with it when I'm done with this." Emma brought her hand up to her mouth and drew two fingers across her lips before taking a step back and resuming her fiddling with the override device. The Banuk had some odd gestures, Aloy mused, before shaking her head and returning her attention to Olin. "I've heard enough. It's time to finish this."

Sighing in resignation, Olin reached up and deactivated the Focus that had been glowing a sickly shade of yellow ever since she caught up with him at Rockwreath. "I won't beg for my life. But if there's any mercy in you , free my family. Please." He pulled the Focus away from the side of his head, holding it out toward Aloy as his desperate gaze bounced back and forth between her and Emma beseechingly. "My Focus recorded the location. There are always guards there but you... both of you look like you can handle yourselves."

Aloy reached out and took the proffered Focus from Olin even as her mind raced. All the time that she'd spent tracking him down since leaving Mother's Watch, she'd thought the decision would be simple. Now that she had him at her mercy, though, it was proving to be anything but. It was clear that he'd been coerced into what he'd done to her tribe; at worst, he was a weak man rather than an evil one. And so in the end, she shook her head at the Oseram before pulling her spear away and tossing his Focus back to him. "It will take many good deeds to make up for the crimes you've committed. Forge a new life, Olin. One of better make."

"You're sparing me? After all I've done?" Olin slowly rose to his feet, a look of wonder bordering upon worship upon his face that Aloy quickly found herself turning away from. She wasn't sparing him to be magnanimous; she was sparing him because it was the right thing to do. "Then the rest of my life will be lived in your debt."

Shuddering faintly at his words, Aloy did her best to ignore the thoroughly amused look on Emma's face as she waved dismissively back over her shoulder at Olin. "Go to the place where your family is being held and wait for me. We'll make their lives the first ones you save."

"I didn't earn this mercy, but I will die to make myself worthy of it. I will be waiting for you."

Keeping her back firmly to Olin to make it clear that the conversation was over, Aloy waited until his footsteps grew distant enough that she doubted the Oseram would be able to overhear them before arching a brow at Emma. "You traveled all the way from Ban-Ur for my Proving, actually followed me through the Proving, and now you've shown up in the middle of nowhere just when I happened to be here. So if you're not stalking me, then what exactly would you call this?"

Emma appeared to consider that for a moment before closing the distance between them, reaching out to run her hand along Aloy's left arm. "Protecting my investment? You look good in Banuk colors, by the way. Although I must admit, I'm surprised to see you actually wearing it. I would have thought it would offend those delicate Nora sensibilities of yours."

"You do remember that I was technically an outcast right up until I finished my Proving, right? Rost and I had to pretty much make things up as we went along for the last nineteen years. Including our 'sensibilities'." Blushing faintly, Aloy glanced down at herself... or more specifically, at her bare midriff. From what she'd seen of the Banuk in passing, the colors of the outfit that she was wearing were the only things it had in common with the tribe's traditional attire. "To be honest, I found it when I woke up and stuffed it in the bottom of my rucksack because I knew that it'd probably be destroyed if I left it behind. I wasn't planning to ever wear it... but it's really warm here in Carja territory. I was sweating something fierce in the outfit that Teb made me; it was either this or go native."

Chuckling softly, Emma continued to run her hands back and forth along Aloy's arms and shoulders for a bit longer before eventually pulling away. "Is that so? Well then, I suppose I'm glad to have been of service. Especially if the alternative would have been you buying something Carja to wear while you're operating out of Meridian." The blonde shuddered at the thought before shooting a baleful look at the corpse of a man dressed similarly to the men in Meridian rather than the distinct attire of an Eclipse cultist. "They're so... flamboyant. Gaudy. And it's not just one or two of them; their entire tribe has awful fashion sense. Somewhere back east, Carson Kressley is spinning in his grave."

While Aloy had no idea who that was or why he would be offended by the fashion of the Carja - which personally she found a bit more aesthetically pleasing than the Nora's aesthetic - the redhead couldn't help but notice the irony inherent in Emma's complaints. "The woman who can turn into some sort of crystal is calling someone else gaudy? Really? You don't see the problem with that?"

Emma scowled at the question, crossing her arms over her chest defensively. "Ahem. When I shift into my transmorph form, my entire body becomes an organic diamond analog that leaves me essentially invulnerable, especially with how primitive weapons are right now. That form is useful." Sniffing haughtily, she nodded in the direction of the fallen Carja man. "Clearly that eyesore did little to keep him alive."

Technically speaking, the blonde wasn't wrong... but mocking a corpse for any reason felt more than a little inappropriate to Aloy and so she cast about for a way to change the subject. Her eyes came to rest on Emma's Stormslinger, or more precisely on the the override device hanging limply from the underside of the shaft. Reaching out, she took the weapon from Emma and eyed the lashing job uncertainly before getting to work securing the object properly. "Just so you know, I'm pretty sure that this thing works in combination with a Focus to take control of machines. I'd recommend trying it on a Watcher or something else small just in case..." Aloy trailed off as Emma cleared her throat, looking up from her work in time to see the blonde brush her hair back on the right side of her face and reveal a Focus of her own. "Of course you do. Is there anything you don't have?"

After pondering the question for a few seconds, Emma perked up and snapped her fingers. "A decent corset. Obviously whalebone is right out, but even the Carja and Oseram aren't at the point yet where they can create a proper steel much less steel boning. And I refuse to lower myself to wearing the equivalent of a fashion corset; I'm not a sixteen-year-old shopping at Hot Topic." Very little of that made a lick of sense to Aloy and so she nodded in feigned comprehensive before returning her attention to the Stormslinger. The Banuk proclivity for using extensive amounts of machine cord in the tribe's unique weapons meant that she had a lot of material to work with, and the very nature of the Stormslinger meant that Emma's override module would quite possibly be able to affect machines more quickly and from further away than Aloy's own. Assuming she could get it to work. As she continued to work to integrate the device into the staff, Emma coughed softly. "I'm sorry about Rost. And for leaving. But with everything that happened, I didn't think being found at the scene of a massacre would end well for me. Not that the Nora would have been able to hold me any longer than I let them, but it would have made things... complicated."

Considering that she could read and control minds, turn into an 'organic diamond analog', and do All-Mother knew what else? 'Complicated' was an understatement in Aloy's book. At the same time? "You were supposed to handle Helis. If you'd done your job, then maybe-"

"I'm sorry, would you have rather me kept fighting with Helis and leave those two cultists with machine guns for Rost to handle? Do you think he would have done better against them than he did against Helis?" Her hands curling up into fists, Emma stepped backward to put a bit of distance between herself and Aloy before sucking in a slow breath. Letting it out, she ducked her head for a moment before meeting Aloy's eyes. "I'm sorry. That was uncalled for. All I can say is that I did my best. In the heat of the moment, I made a judgement call: to put myself between the two of you and a pair of heavy weapons. Maybe I should have stuck with Helis, and you and Rost would have found a way to kill those cultists before they killed you. Maybe if I'd chosen differently, Rost would still be alive. Or maybe if I'd chosen differently, the two of you would have gone down in a hail of bullets. We'll never know, though, because I made the decision that I did. All we can do is push onward and do our best to avenge all the Nora who have died for HADES's madness."

Aloy managed to restrain her curiosity until she tied off the last bit of machine cord, and then her head rose as she offered the Stormslinger back to its owner. "There's that name again. Olin mentioned it; some sort of devil that Eclipse worships. A devil that doesn't like me much. What do you know about it?"

Taking the proffered spear, Emma shrugged before reaching up to tap at the Focus that graced the side of her head. "Very little, to be honest. My wife and I donated our genetic material to Project: Zero Dawn as a personal favor to Elisabet. That was the extent of our involvement with the project, though; we died with our students when the Faro Plague realized the threat that my kind posed and wiped the entire town of Westchester clean. But we do know someone with a great deal of knowledge about Hades who can tell you everything you need to know. Isn't that right, Sylens?"

After a few seconds of silence, Aloy's Focus crackled softly and she heard a gusty sigh. "I'm not sure who I hate more right now, Emma: you or HADES."

"That's a very exclusive list right there. I'm honored to be on it."


	3. Chapter 3

Joe's Note: I took a bit of a break from this story when not one but two people fucked me over during the course of producing a single prop for Peregrine's Aloy cosplay. But while the girl who finished the 3D kit did a terrible job - and delivered it three months overdue - the true Hall of Shame entry goes to 3DStarForge for churning out kits with such criminally low infill levels that the larger pieces can't even be safely - and properly - glued together. Sigh. I've got a message out to Guerrilla Games in hopes that they'll provide me with the files I need to remedy the situation. Otherwise, I've got a Faro Swarm-sized problem on my hands. Anyway, enough about what's going wrong in my workroom right now. Let's get ourselves back to the story that you all came here to read, shall we?  
Dedications & Thanks: To Nicholas, Howard, Alexander, Tibor, Alonsis2, Daniel, Charles, Andrew, Morgan, Marc, Samuel, Crygon20, PbookR, Jason, Stephen, Subtle, Roofcrawler, Edward, Fablesrogue, Joseph, Christopher, Wil, Daniel, Chris, bloodylord, Jacky, Beverly, Devin, William, RileyWestfall, Jade, George, Ziryo, Leigh, Charles, Paul, Haematite, Mauday, Gavin, Lookshy, TheTenthAncestor, David, Warren, Jess, and Roman for sponsoring me on , and making it easier for me to spend more of my time writing.

* * *

"So, that was all very... exhilarating. Compared to this adventure's climax, the resolution almost feels like a let down..."

"I had to run around dodging bullets fired by a giant machine until I could kill it, while you pulled your disappearing act again. You have a very interesting definition of fun, Emma."

"Excuse me?" Emerging from the same narrow fissure that Aloy has been slithering through to make her way deeper into Maker's End, Emma took a few seconds to brush herself off before crossing her arms over her chest haughtily. "While you were taking care of the Deathbringer, I was busy killing literally all of the Eclipse cultists that you probably forgot were there. And by probably, I mean definitely. Because I can read your mind and you most definitely forgot about them."

That was the singular biggest problem with having a telepath for a traveling companion, Aloy had quickly discovered: nothing remained secret for long, if at all. Mistakes were quickly laid bare, and questions were routinely answered before she could even ask them aloud. Not to mention that, well, she'd gotten very good at keeping her thoughts pure around Emma. Which was becoming more difficult by the day given the blonde's fondness for wandering around their campsites in far, far too little clothing.

Shaking her head to clear it even as Emma's eyebrow rose in amusement, Aloy turned her back on the blonde and scrambled up a mossy, crumbling incline to a door that flared to life with a series of glowing red lines. Just like the All-Mother, it greeted her with the same words in the same inhumanly perfect female voice. "Hold for identiscan." As the familiar red beam of light flared to life and began slowly sweeping upward over her body, Aloy did her best to prepare herself for the impending disappointment that would come with a repeat of being inspected by a higher power and found wanting. But much to her surprise, when the beam reached the top of her head and disappeared, the red lines turned blue and entirely different words emerged. "Genetic profile confirmed. Entry authorized. Greetings, Doctor Sobeck. Please, step inside."

As Aloy stood there staring at the opened hatch in shock, Emma chuckled softly and brushed past her. "Now will you finally believe me when I tell you that you are in fact the clone of a woman I once knew? Or are you going to stubbornly hold out until we reconstruct the All-Mother's alpha registry so you can hear it straight from your 'goddess'?"

That was a revelation that the young redhead was still struggling mightily to wrap her brain around. Clones. Motherless children of machines, created in the exactingly perfect image of another person. Copies, rather than individuals. Emma had been 'kind' enough to project images of meeting the original Elisabet Sobeck into Aloy's head, and then softened the blow by sharing memories of her own interactions with her 'daughters'... who were evidently a set of younger clones of Emma herself. But hearing it from Emma was one thing; the blonde was frank in that she was a supremely gifted schemer and manipulator, and so Aloy honestly couldn't be certain that the images weren't in fact fake. Being presented with incontestable proof was something else entirely... and yet no easier to accept.

Doing her best to force such thoughts down so that she could focus on the present, Aloy slowly stepped through the opened doors and into the brilliant bluish-white light... which almost immediately gave way to a corridor dimly lit by a series of flickering, purple-dominated holograms. That was another benefit of having an Old One for a traveling companion: she could now identify far, far more things than her upbringing would have allowed for otherwise. Her eyes quickly adjusted to the gloom, sweeping back and forth as she debated her options, and then the voice rang out again from everywhere and yet nowhere in particular. "Doctor Sobeck. You are three hundred and fifty-five thousand, five hundred and ten days overdue for your meeting with Mister Faro. Please proceed to the thirty-fifth floor."

"Wait. Three hundred and fifty thousand... that's hundreds of years ago."

"Exactly nine hundred and seventy-four years to the day. Strangely fortuitous. Almost as if we were meant to be here on this exact day." Emma sidled up behind Aloy as the doors slowly whirred shut behind them, wrapping an arm around the redhead's waist as she rested her chin on Aloy's right shoulder. "I always knew you had a flare for the dramatic, Sylens, but this is getting ridiculous. And do you need me to show you how to activate the conference call feature on our Focuses? Or should I just keep pulling your words and images from Aloy's mind?"

There was a long stretch of silence broken only by the soft huffs of both women's breathing, and then finally their Focuses flared to life in perfect synchronicity. "You forgot to factor leap years into your calculations, Emma. It would be exactly the right day... eight months or so from now. If you want, I can calculate the exact date for you so that you can return to indulge the flair for the dramatic that you claim I possess?"

"One of you primitives knows what a leap year is? I think my heart just stuttered a bit; I'm quite literally dying of shock over here." Unwrapping her arms from around Aloy, Emma brushed past the redhead before turning back to her and extending a hand in invitation. "I'm sure your inner Oseram sees this as the mother of all delves, but the answers we're looking for aren't going to be found in a minion's office or a public area. The computer believes that you're Elisabet and thinks you need to go to Ted Faro's office. I say we oblige it."

* * *

"A Deathbringer. Or a statue of one, anyway. A machine built to kill... and they honored it?"

"If you think Faro's crude war machines are impressive, remind me to show you what one of Tony's Hulkbuster suits could do."

"Hulk... buster? What's a 'Hulk', and how does one 'bust' it? For the matter, why would you need to 'bust' it?"

"I'm afraid that's a complicated story for another time, darling. Onward."

* * *

"Obviously I know what a dick is... secondhand, of course..."

"Of course."

"...but what did that man mean when he said that Ted Faro had 'small dick energy'?"

"What's the best way to explain this? Oh, I know! That odious little shit named Bast who was part of your Proving. The loudmouth who wasn't nearly as skilled as he claimed to be. Bast had small dick energy."

"Explanations aside, should we really be speaking ill of the dead?"

"If he'd had big dick energy, he wouldn't be dead, now would he? Ah, that's rhetorical, my dear. He wouldn't be."

* * *

Thirty-five floors of inquisitive exploration mixed with perilous climbing in hazardous conditions later, Aloy had weathered a bevy of damning revelations about the Old Ones and their fall, a handful of what felt like largely rhetorical or thought-provoking musings from Sylens, and more of Emma's snarky comments about Ted Faro and his products than the redhead cared to count. Or quite possibly thirty-six floors of such; she'd actually dropped down at least an average man's height to enter the wreckage of the office. But as she made a slow lap around the ruins of the office, carefully inspecting anything and everything that looked even remotely valuable, Aloy found herself feeling profoundly disappointed and unsatisfied. "There's nothing here, Emma. We came all this way for nothing."

Looking up from where she was crouched next to something that she'd call a 'blade enclosure', Emma arched an eyebrow before gesturing to the device that she was trying to repair. "This is Ted Faro's personal data storage. If I can get it operational, there's a chance that it'll contain... well, certainly not the answer to the one question that I have. But likely the answers to a great many of your questions." The blonde shook her head before returning her attention to her work. "Still can't believe that he used a Frost Industries solution for his office. Actually, I can; my company's products were second only to Tony's and those two hated each other more than Charles and Erik. I suppose I'm more surprised that he was using a stock three zettabyte commercial setup; it's the same storage solution that I had in my office at the Institute. I used it to store things like course syllabi, student work, and our homemade pornography."

"I understood absolutely none of that." Wandering over to stand behind Emma, Aloy pressed the butt of her spear against the floor and leaned on it as she watched her companion work. After a few seconds, she furrowed her brow and amended her previous statement. "I take it back. You've given me a remarkably thorough grounding on the subject of pornography. But the rest of it... I have absolutely no idea what you're talking about."

There was movement in the corner of her eye followed by a deep sigh as the hologram of Sylens made his way over to lean against the long table running down the center of the office. And hadn't that been a shock: not only could he spy on her life, seeing and hearing everything that Aloy experienced from the safety of... wherever he was... but the Banuk shaman could also project himself to where she was rather than risking his own life to venture there himself. "I'm ashamed to admit that I understand only little more than you do, Aloy. I believe the 'Tony' that she's referring to is Tony Stark-"

"You actually figured something out all by yourself, Sylens? I'm shocked. Shocked, I tell you."

"-a peer and competitor of Ted Faro who was famous for his work with robotics, weaponry, and exotic energy systems. He was also either a 'superhero' or 'adventurer' depending on the source, calling himself 'Iron Man' while fighting against injustice. He was one of the first noteworthy casualties to the Hartz-Timor swarm." Before Sylens could continue - or Aloy could ask any one of the dozen of new questions that his explanation had spawned in her mind - Emma made a triumphant noise and new lights blazed to life on the device that she'd been tinkering with. "Why haven't you seized control of Malmstrom and the Conclave yet, Emma?"

Slowly rising to her feet, Emma turned and leaned against the glowing cabinet, raising an eyebrow at Sylens's projection imperiously. "Well, I suppose that if I was a thieving, murderous fraud with delusions of grandeur like another shaman I know, I could have by now." Before the phantasmal man could respond, Emma brought her hand up to manipulate something in her own Focus's interface, giving Aloy one of her first glimpses at how she must appear to others. It was... odd, to say the least. "I copied over some of the utilities that I recovered another of my company's computers that was in better shape. Any second now..."

"All data has been erased from this device. Doctor Sobeck, do you wish to deploy Alpha privileges to recover purged data?"

Meeting Emma's triumphant gaze with a faint smile of her own, Aloy nodded even though she was reasonably certain that the computer couldn't actually see her. After all, if it could, it would know that she wasn't in fact 'Doctor Sobeck' and presumably wouldn't be nearly as willing to work with her. "Oh yes, I believe I do."

"A data file has been recovered."

* * *

"Elisabet told Ted Faro she was headed for a place called U.S. Robot Command to tell people about Zero Dawn."

"The place still exists... as a ruin. The Oseram call it the 'Grave-Hoard'."

"The Grave-Hoard? Cheery name."

"You'll find it in the eastern mountains, buried under the tangled coils of a Metal Devil... or a BOR-7 Horus, rather, as we've learned they were called. I'll contact you when you get there."

"I can't wait." As Sylens's hologram shimmered out of existence, Aloy shook her head determinedly. "Someday we'll meet in person, and your manners had better be improved." Turning back to where Emma was sitting in what had been Ted Faro's chair back when she was still alive, her feet kicked up to rest on the table, Aloy made her way over to the blonde and opened her mouth to ask one of the dozens of questions swirling through her head... only to pause as an entirely new one occurred to her. "I just realized... if he can see and hear everything that I'm experiencing using his connection to my Focus, then does that mean he-"

The corner of Emma's mouth quirked upward in a devilish smile. "He has. Frequently. He forgets that I can read his mind all the way back in his hidey hole out in King's Peak. If I wasn't an exhibitionist, I would have turned his brain into pudding by now." After stretching languidly, Emma let her feet drop to the floor before standing and closing the distance between them, wrapping her arms around Aloy's waist. "And now you're back to wondering why I was so quiet during your... let's call it a discussion with Sylens. It's simple, really." One hand rose to pluck the Focus from the right side of Aloy's head, hurling it back over the redhead's shoulder. As Aloy turned with a startled cry, watching as her pride and joy disappeared down the 'executive lift' that had opened after they'd watched all the files the computer could recover, Emma tightened her grip. "Don't worry, they're durable. We'll retrieve them on the way out. Now that we're truly alone, though... like I said, it's simple. You both want answers. I have answers. And I don't want him to know them."

Ugh. So yet more fiction that she'd have to keep up whenever she had her Focus on. Aloy was already getting tired of pretending that she didn't know who Elisabet was, or what their connection was. And Emma was probably getting tired of rewriting Sylens's mind each time Aloy messed up and blurted out something that she shouldn't have. But on the other hand... answers were answers. Did she really want to look a gift Charger in the mouth? "So you know what Project: Zero Dawn was?"

Emma let out a soft sigh, leaning forward to rest her forehead against Aloy's. "Darling? You first heard that name from my own lips, back when we reunited at Rockwreath. Yes, I know what Zero Dawn was. I know how my civilization was destroyed. I know how the machines were defeated." Leaning back, Emma's eyes flared with blue light as she offered Aloy an inviting smile. "After spending this much time with you, I think I'm ready to make this partnership of ours a bit more permanent. Say yes and as a dowry of sorts, I won't tell you everything I know about Zero Dawn... I'll show you."

"Well when you make an offer like that, how can I possibly refuse?"


	4. Chapter 4

Joe's Note: When I started this project, I intended to do only six chapters to keep from doing what was essentially a gameplay rewrite of _Horizon Zero Dawn_ the way that far too many people try to rewrite entire books or seasons of shows as fan fiction. But as I worked on character designs and ideas, I realized that I could introduce a slightly larger selection of Marvel characters - and show more moments from Aloy's story - without reaching a 'total rewrite' level of coverage. Mostly because that game is easily a seventy-five to ninety hour adventure if you're thorough and after a completionist playthrough the way that I am. So without further ado? We pick back up with Aloy's exploration of the Grave-Hoard... where she meets not one but two blasts from Emma's past.  
Dedications & Thanks: To Nicholas, Howard, Alexander, Tibor, Alonsis2, Daniel, Charles, Andrew, Morgan, Marc, Samuel, Crygon20, PbookR, Jason, Stephen, Subtle, Roofcrawler, Edward, Fablesrogue, Joseph, Christopher, Wil, Daniel, Chris, bloodylord, Jacky, Beverly, Devin, William, RileyWestfall, Jade, George, Ziryo, Leigh, Charles, Paul, Haematite, Mauday, Gavin, Lookshy, TheTenthAncestor, David, Warren, Jess, and Roman for sponsoring me on , and making it easier for me to spend more of my time writing.

* * *

Of course, given Aloy's luck, they couldn't go straight to the Grave-Hoard to continue their investigation after departing from Maker's End. They'd returned to Meridian briefly, undertaken a flurry of trading and bartering for new and improved supplies for their quest. From there, they'd moved on to helping out several different needy parties at - surprisingly enough - Emma's insistence, cleaned out a handful of bandit camps threatening the trade routes set up between various cities, and visited not one or two but three separate Cauldrons to expand both of their control over the various machines roaming their world. The last had been particularly challenging, forcing the pair to wade through a small army of Eclipse cultists before they could reach the core and override it.

Finally, though, her new girlfriend had deemed them ready to move on, and so they'd set out for the eastern mountains. Or as Emma had called them, the Rocky Mountains. Which was a perfectly foolish name in Aloy's opinion, because weren't all mountains made of rock? The Old Ones seemed to have a fondness for names that stated the obvious, the redhead was discovering. Like 'girlfriend' for a woman who you were intimate with but not yet betrothed or married. Obviously she was a girl, and if they were doing... that... then clearly they were friends at a minimum.

 _'If you can't even think the word 'sex', darling, then I'm not sure we should be having it.'_

As they approached the ancient door that she'd just spent the better part of twenty minutes restoring power to, Aloy shot a reproachful look at Emma before focusing her mind the way the blonde had taught her to. _'You know, this is really unfair. You know every single thought I have, but I only get to know the ones you share with me.'_

Emma offered a faint shrug in reply, sidling up on the redhead's left before reaching over to cop a feel of Aloy's ass. _'If you must know, I've been thinking about doing that the whole time you were scampering up and down those ladders. You have an ass you could bounce a Blazing Sun medallion off of.'_

Scoffing, Aloy reached back to bat at the hand currently resting on her rear. "I get that you already know most of what Sylens and I are learning from me visiting these sites, but could you at least take me seriously even if you're not taking my journey seriously?"

"It's hard to take things seriously when your opponents have yet to discover how gunpowder works yet... but I'll do my best?" Emma slid her hand up to the small of Aloy's back and then around to rest on the redhead's hip as she gestured upward with her free hand. "And to answer one of your other unasked questions? They were named by the original inhabitants of this area, whose names for landmarks were exceedingly literal. As in, _as-sin-wati_ meant 'when seen from across the prairies, they looked like a rocky mass' in native Algonquian. Personally, I think they sound far nicer in French - _les montagnes Rocheuses_ \- even if the meaning is the same. Then again, literally everything sounds classier in French if you ask me."

"So does that mean that you'd rather me call you _la Reine Blanche_ , then?" Aloy whirled around in surprise at the unexpected voice, her hand hovering over her bow for a moment before opting for her spear instead. In the tight confines of the Grave-Hoard's narrow corridors, she reasoned, combat would likely be either melee or hand-to-hand. Absently, she realized that Emma seemed completely at ease even as she reacted, the blonde's arm remaining looped loosely around her waist, and then she spotted the intruder and understood why.

It was another Old One.

It had to be, given the way that she appeared in a shower of blue motes of light, bursting outward through flickering afterimages of herself as she... she almost seemed to be growing to full size? Despite the fact that her clothing had a distinctly Oseram vibe to them, she clearly wasn't; the fluttering bug wings emerging from her back was proof enough of that. And then Emma gave a throaty laugh. "Janet van Dyne. Nice of you to finally join us properly. You're looking very... native."

Janet took a moment to regard Emma warily before her lips curled upward in a smile, the smaller woman edging around Aloy so that she could pull Emma into a hug. "Janet Pym, actually. Hank and I reconciled before the end. He's currently using his ants to sneak his latest delving trophies out past Eclipse. Who... given that you're with 'The Red-Hair', I'm assuming are the reason why you're here?"

Keeping one arm firmly wrapped around Aloy's waist, Emma used the other to envelop the newcomer and keep Janet pulled tight against herself and Aloy, patting her on the back a few times before letting her hand drift down to... rest on the Oseram's ass? "After a fashion. Sylens-"

"Is that fucker still alive? He pissed Hank off a year or so ago and took a size hundred boot from here to a nearby peak."

"While both that and your survival are stories that I have every intention of either hearing or stealing from your mind? Yes." Emma nodded in Aloy's direction before leaning in to rest her cheek on the redhead's shoulder, her right arm remaining wrapped around Aloy's waist even as her left hand remained firmly planted on Janet's ass. "He got it in his head to try and use Aloy as his errand girl by dangling her connection to Elisabet Sobeck out there in front of her an incentive. I've been allowing it because I still haven't located all the things he stole from Malmstrom, and he can't pay for the rest of his sins before he pays for that one."

There were a few seconds of companionable silence, and then Janet peered back over her shoulder. "I can't help but notice that your hand is on my ass."

Aloy couldn't help but snicker at Janet's petulant tone; despite the fact that it was her girlfriend touching another woman, she was still able see the humor in the situation. "She does that. A lot."

"Here we are in the year of our Lord 3040, Emma, and you still can't accept that I'm straight?"

"In the incredibly profound words of one of my students... so is spaghetti until you get it wet."

That earned the blonde a groan of disgust from Janet, the smaller Oseram woman looking to Aloy in askance before shaking her head in resignation. "You're not going to be any help. Given that she doesn't even touch people casually unless she really likes them, you're evidently crazy enough to be involved with her."

"She's dating someone who's been marked for death by a killer AI, so I'd like to think that it's mutual craziness on both our parts." Aloy's words elicited a disgruntled noise from Emma, who tried to escape only to be pulled back in as Aloy reciprocated with an arm around the blonde's waist. "In all seriousness, I'm assuming that you and this 'Hank' of yours are... special... like Emma is? Would you be willing to help us clean Eclipse out of the Grave-Hoard?"

Wriggling out of Emma's grasp, Janet nodded excitedly as she rubbed her hands together, sending little crackles of yellow energy dancing over her fingertips. "Thought you'd never ask. As long as you don't mind me joining your fellowship, I figure I'll stick around until Hank signals me that he's done. Whatever you guys are up to has to be more exciting than herding ants."

That was the second mention involving Hank and ants, which was one of the precious few organic - one of the many concepts that she'd learned from Emma - creatures that she knew much about outside of the prey animals that the Nora hunted and trapped. Given how small they were, what could Janet and Hank be using them for when it came to moving... anything? And how did one herd them? Aloy shook her head again; she would just have to accept for now that she was in the presence of yet another Old One whose life experiences and abilities were simply outside of her ability to comprehend. Guiding Emma forward, she activated the door that she'd worked so hard to restore power to and then stepped through, frowning as a cacophony of noise washed over her. "Tools being used. And voices. More Eclipse. Must be another way in."

From behind Aloy came a faint popping noise followed by a soft gust of wind, and then Janet... a tiny version of Janet, but most certainly Janet... was landing on Emma's bare shoulder. "Wow, I thought you'd replaced Jean in your life but she's really more of a Steve. She's got that 'authoritatively stating the obvious' thing down pat."

"You get used to it after a while, and then it becomes strangely endearing. Like dating a video game protagonist who has to vocalize all her inner thoughts for the sake of exposition." The trio passed through a short corridor that had been almost completely reclaimed by natural stalagmites and stalactites, emerging into a massive cavern lit by both natural light and man-made torches. And the glowing red eyes of at least one corrupted Scrapper, which promised to make the coming battle even more interesting for them. "Aloy? For the sake of the non-telepath in the room, call your shots."

Aloy's fingers came up to brush against her Focus, enveloping the world in blazing light. There was the Scrapper that was impossible to miss, along with... one two three four five six seven... eight Eclipse cultists in their immediate vicinity. Along two unknown items; based on their time in the Grave-Hoard so far, they were probably surviving computers struggling to connect with her Focus but the possibility also existed that they were stashes of what her Focus deemed salvageable components. "I'm going to go up the left side. There's one person in the nearest office along with something of interest to my Focus. Janet, do you and Emma want to go up the middle? There's five cultists and the Scrapper will probably respond pretty quickly from the rear office, but I think Emma can protect you if you get overwhe-"

"The fuck you say?" Leaping off of Emma's shoulder, Janet returned to her full size in another shower of blue sparkles before vaulting over the handrail separating them from a drop down to the cavern floor. But she didn't drop to the floor as Aloy expected, instead continuing to grow taller and taller until she rivaled a Thunderjaw in size. "Hey! Assholes! Put up your dukes!"

Aloy cringed as Janet drove a massive fist into the ground, pulping the body of the brave - or more accurately, suicidal - cultist who actually rushed to engage her first. Sometimes, she wished that she could experience the world of the Old Ones that Emma was showing her more and more glimpses of. Times like this? Not so much.

* * *

Standing over the console in the briefing room, Aloy stared down uncertainly at the handprint reader on the console in front of her. Or at least that's what Emma had called the one they discovered in what she was internally calling the Map Room. how anyone or anything could read a hand when it didn't have any writing on it, the redhead had no idea. But after battling through more Eclipse than she could count, along with a fully functional and mobile Deathbringer? Even if the battles had been made significantly easier with Janet's help? It still seemed like a bit of a let down as a reward for all her effort.

But as Emma was fond of reminding her when she complained that the Banuk was keeping hugely important secrets from her, the blonde was a 'hand up, not a hand out'. If Aloy wanted the answers to the mysteries swirling around her existence, then Emma expected her to put in her fair share of effort. And so the redhead pressed her hand against the palm reader, waiting for the light to sweep back and forth over her skin before stepping back so she could get a better view of the multiple holographic figures that sprang to life. "Thank you, Doctor Sobeck. You can take a seat."

"Hah! You're going to thank her?! After what she just said?!"

"Doctor Sobeck has made the situation very clear, General... and given us an option. We should all be thanking her."

Aloy watched with a critical eye as the scene played out, watching as long dead men argued over Elisabet's plan to save them from extinction. She had to agree with the one man; intentionally sending untrained people to die - especially for a lie - was a horrific act. But clearly it had worked out in their favor, because Elisabet had come through with... whatever Zero Dawn was. Clearly. Because Aloy was standing there to listen to the recording. Right?

Her mind whirled as she led Emma and Janet out of the briefing room and then up the escape elevator's shaft into the sunlight, leaving Aloy only peripherally aware of the conversations going on around her. Emma and Sylens seemed to agree that continuing to follow in Elisabet's footsteps to the Orbital Launch Base was essential... except those footsteps would take them into the underside of the Citadel at Sunfall. But while the Old Ones were confident that their abilities would allow them to see Aloy safely through the Shadow Carja stronghold to her destination, Sylens seemed far less certain of their success. Something about a 'network' of Focuses connecting Eclipse members to HADES. She idly vocalized that she didn't know what a network does. Sylens responded. And then Aloy knew what her next step was. "All right. So there's this 'vast invisible web' of signals connecting Eclipse members and that's why they're a threat. Well what do you to when a spider moves in somewhere that you don't want it? You cut its web down."

That earned Aloy an approving look from both Emma and Janet... and at some point they'd picked up an Oseram man as well. Who was sitting astride a giant ant that someone had lashed a mixture of armor and storage containers to. She was going to assume it was Janet's previously mentioned husband Hank because... Old One dressed as an Oseram while riding an ant? Who else could it be? Sylens spared a moment to shoot a nervous look over at Hank before returning his attention to Aloy with an appraising look on his face. "Hmm. Crash the network. Audacious." After a few seconds, he nodded decisively. "Yes, there is a way. A weak point in the network."

There. They had a course of action now, rather than standing around arguing about her capabilities. "Good. Point the way."

"Heh. I'll send the location data to your Focus." Sylens waved an arm, clearly manipulating his own Focus as he spoke with Aloy. "Head there, and I'll be in touch when you're close with more directions." And then he rippled and disappeared, returning to... whatever he'd been working on all afternoon while Aloy risked her life for the answers he sought.

From atop his insectoid steed, Hank cleared his throat before reaching up to adjust the utterly alien, bug-like metal helmet that he wore. "If I could offer a word of advice? We may not know each other, Aloy, but I do know that Sylens is a conniving, manipulative, dishonorable son of a bitch. If you're going to be trying to crash a network being monitored by an AI... then I think that you might want to come meet my son first."


End file.
